


Depth of a Smile

by lifevolutionary



Category: NCIS
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-04
Updated: 2011-04-04
Packaged: 2017-10-17 13:44:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/177454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lifevolutionary/pseuds/lifevolutionary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>He'd called McGee Tim. He was slipping. The tiredness was eroding his filters, letting things past his walls that were better kept firmly out of the light.</i></p><p>Abby gets fed up of the unresolved flirting between Gibbs and McGee and gives them a shove in the right direction.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Depth of a Smile

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by Munchkin30 on LJ, but I'm a compulsive editor. Set sometime after Dog Tags (5x13).
> 
> An older fic I'm just getting round to putting up on here.

"What is it Tim?" Even after 40 hours without sleep, Jethro didn’t have to look up to know it was McGee. He could always tell.

"Um, it's 3am, Tony and Ziva called for their check in. Still nothing, uh, boss." Gibbs wondered at Tim's hesitation over 'boss' for longer than he should've had to before realisation hit; he'd called McGee Tim. He was slipping. The tiredness was eroding his filters, letting things past his walls that were better kept firmly out of the light.

"Thanks McGee." He rubbed his eyes and tried to refocus on the reports he was supposed to be reading. This case was taking way too long to solve, it was beginning to get to him.

"Uh, Gibbs?" Tim's voice was still hesitant.

"Yes?" He answered without looking up, maybe then Tim would go away before Jethro let anything else slip. Usually he was good at keeping everything hidden away behind his mask; he’d had plenty of practice. At times like this, though, it was a lot harder to keep his attraction to the younger agent locked up behind his walls.

"Um..." McGee seemed to be gathering his courage, "Are you okay?" Jethro froze and Tim scrambled to qualify his question. Obviously misinterpreting the surprise as disapproval. "I mean, I just-"

Gibbs unfroze and forced himself to wave a dismissive hand as he looked up at Tim's worried face. "It's okay, Tim." Damn, he'd done it again, "It's just been a long week. Things’ll be better once this case is over." He attempted a smile, not knowing how well it would come out when he was this tired, and felt shock and warmth rush over him when Tim blushed in response.

"I'll, uh, just go back to work then, uh." McGee babbled and then fled, leaving Jethro staring after him with surprise; wondering if he could possibly be interpreting that reaction right. He'd never considered that Tim might actually be interested in him in return.

He shook his head, rebuking himself for getting distracted. He made a mental note to smile at Tim more often, to see if it was only a one time occurrence and went back to the reports. This was something to be pursued when he'd had a bit more sleep.

A few weeks later, he thought to himself that the smiles seemed to be working. He was almost certain now that Tim's blushes weren't just from hero worship; they'd started to be accompanied by glances Jethro could swear were flirtatious or at least hopeful.

The problem was he'd forgotten that flirting with Tim in Abby's lab was probably not a good idea if he didn't want Abby figuring him out.

She accosted him when he dropped by her lab at the end of a case to get the hardcopy of the evidence report.

"Gibbs! I need to talk to you!" She sounded determined.

He raised questioning eyebrows at her.

She drew herself up, as if she needed to steel herself to say whatever it was. This couldn't be good.

She wagged a finger in front of his face. "Are you toying with my Timothy's affections, Gibbs?"

He felt himself freeze, momentarily surprised into dropping his calm mask, and then cursed internally as he saw her expression change. He opened his mouth try damage control, though he had no idea what he could say. But she squealed and clapped her hands together happily before he could get a word out.

"Oh, oh! You're not! You really- Oh, Gibbs!" She flung her arms around his neck and hugged him tightly.

"Abbs." He pulled himself together enough to put warning in his voice. "You know you can't-"

She pulled back, "Oh, no no, don't worry, I won't tell anyone." She bit her lip. "Uh, are you and Tim actually...?” He gave her another look.

"No," he said sternly and her face fell. Gibbs cursed himself for never being able to disappoint her as he felt his expression soften. He knew he was going to regret the next words out of his mouth but there was no way he could stop them coming. "Not yet."

Her ecstatic grin returned and she hugged him again. Jethro hugged her back resignedly, then felt her stiffen in his arms.

"Oh, drat. Tim!" Abby pulled away from Gibbs and started to rush towards the door to her office. She stopped and turned back to point at him, "You stay right there, I'm going to get Tim back in here and then you are going to sort this out!" She ran out.

Jethro stared after her in confusion for a moment. Then realised that Tim must have walked into the lab, seen them hugging and walked out again. Blast. He began quickly searching through the files on Abby's desk, he had to get that report and get out before-

Tim's voice came from the direction of the office door. "Abby, what are you-? Why are you pushing me?"

Jethro turned round, schooling his features. His brain frantically running through scenarios to see if he could find a way out of this. He wasn’t sure if he was ready to ‘sort this out’ as Abby said. He wasn’t really sure if he’d ever be ready to; flirting was one thing but, well, there was the age difference to consider. He was an old man compared to Tim. Tim deserved—

McGee’s surprised complaint, at the glass door of Abby’s office closing in his face, dragged Gibbs back to the real world. Abby hand-signed through the glass that she’d disabled the security cameras and then disappeared with a wave. Tim stared after her in bemusement, trying to open the locked glass door. “What the-?”

“Tim.” He said quietly. McGee turned, his eyes widening. He opened his mouth; probably to stutter out some sort of explanation or apology. Gibbs cut him off before he started. “She thinks we have some things to ‘sort out’.” He said, as he walked toward Tim with a small smile. He’d made his decision. In the end, it hadn’t been a decision at all.

“Er, ‘things’?” Tim started to colour as Gibbs stopped well inside his personal space. Jethro knew he really shouldn’t think that was adorable but he wasn’t entirely in control of his brain at the moment. This close to he could smell McGee and the familiar mix of shampoo, aftershave and Tim’s natural scent was distracting.

“I think you know what I mean, Tim.” Jethro damn well hoped Tim did or he was about to burn quite a lot of bridges. He restrained a sigh of relief when he saw McGee’s pupils dilate in response and his eyes flick almost imperceptibly down to Jethro’s lips. Gibbs’ smile widened and he raised one hand to rest it on Tim’s shoulder. There was definitely hope blooming in McGee’s eyes now as he leaned slightly into the touch. Then Tim licked his lips nervously and Gibbs couldn’t hold back anymore. He stepped closer and leaned forward.

Tim stopped him just as their lips were about to meet with hands grasped around Jethro’s upper arms and Gibbs started swearing at himself. If he’d read things wrong… But then McGee whispered, “There are security cameras.” and Jethro relaxed again.

“Abby’s disabled them.” He murmured back. A thought popped a flag up in his brain and waved it around until it got his attention. Quite a feat considering how focused he was on Tim right now. “The official ones at least. She’ll have installed some of her own, though, if you object to that?” Tim shook his head and Jethro leant in again, a smile on his lips when they met Tim’s.

The first kiss didn’t last long but they both moved back together almost immediately. Tim made a small noise as he opened his mouth to Jethro’s tongue. It was a noise that went straight down Gibbs’ spine to his groin and he slid his arm around Tim’s waist to draw him closer. The hand that had been sitting on McGee’s shoulder slid round to the back of his neck, Jethro’s fingers automatically tangling in the hair at the nape of Tim’s neck. McGee’s hands were still grasping Jethro’s arms, holding tight as if he was afraid Gibbs might pull away from him. Jethro didn’t intend to pull away anytime soon, though, not now he was finally kissing Tim’s soft, inviting lips. This deeper kiss went on until they had to pull away gasping from lack of breath.

Tim was looking at Gibbs with something like wonderment. Jethro leant forward and kissed him again quickly. “We need to talk. Somewhere that isn’t here.” McGee nodded but Jethro could see worry beginning to creep across his face. He kissed him again quickly to reassure him. That was the idea anyway, it lasted longer than he’d meant it to because Tim was gaining confidence and Jethro wasn’t going to discourage him by pulling away. They were both breathing heavily again, by the time they pulled apart.

Jethro reluctantly untangled himself from Tim so he could walk over to the glass door and tap it. It opened almost immediately but there was no sign of Abby. Gibbs was grateful that she seemed to be being tactful now.

“Come on, let’s go.” For once, he waited so Tim could walk beside him rather than having to hurry to catch up. “My place?” He asked, hoping his nervousness wasn’t showing. Usually he wouldn’t have to hope but there’d always been something about Tim, that made it harder to keep his emotions in check.

“Uh, I have to feed…the dog sometime this evening.” Tim’s nervousness was showing still. The part of Jethro’s mind that wasn’t completely focused on McGee noted with amusement the pause as Tim retracted the dog’s name. McGee was obviously still awkward that Abby wouldn’t let him change the dog’s name to something other than Jethro. The much larger part of his brain that was focused on McGee noted happily that Tim seemed to be assuming they’d be spending the entire evening in each other’s company. He turned his head to smile at him.

“Right, your place it is then.”

**** **** **** ****

They didn’t actually talk until they were lying naked together on the bed; Tim curled against Jethro’s side so he could rest his head on Jethro’s shoulder. They’d left NCIS in separate cars, Gibbs following behind.

By the time they reached Tim’s place, neither of them was much in the mood for talking.

As soon as Tim had got the door open, Gibbs had backed him against the wall and kissed him again. Tim had acquiesced immediately, he couldn’t have done anything else, it was Gibbs. Tim had been imagining this for a long time, he wasn’t going to do anything to jeopardize this chance.

Everything was a bit of a blur for Tim after that. He did remember having a panicky moment wondering what he was supposed to call Jethro. It wasn’t a situation where ‘boss’ or ‘Gibbs’ was appropriate and that was like a bucket of cold water on Tim’s lust. It made him realise exactly what he was doing; he was kissing his _boss_. He was letting his _boss_ undo the buttons on his shirt and push it off his shoulders.

Tim had pulled back far enough to murmur, “Uh, Gi-, uh…” but Jethro had cut him off with a kiss, then replied with a smile.

“In the circumstances, you can call me Jethro.” After that, Tim’s brain had let the lust take over again.

And now they were naked in bed together. At some point, they’d have to talk about this; McGee wasn’t exactly looking forward to it.

Tim felt more than heard Jethro sigh, just before the arm around his shoulder tightened and Gibbs spoke.

“Tim, you know we can’t-” Tim knew where the rest of that sentence was going, he’d been thinking about it himself.

“Tell anyone about this? I know. But Abby…” He trailed off.

“I think we can trust Abby not to give us away.” Tim could hear the smile in Jethro’s voice. “And Ducky will probably figure it out; he’s known me far too long not to.”

Tim looked up at him, surprised, “You don’t mind that?”

“Ducky knowing?” Jethro frowned down at him, “No.”

Tim lowered his eyes again as he asked the next question, “And Rule 12?”

“It’s still a good rule,” Tim’s heart sank but Gibbs wasn’t finished, “But some things are more important than rules, even good ones. And never tell DiNozzo I said that.”

Tim laughed, relief making him giddy but when he looked up, Jethro’s expression was turning sober again.

“Even so…we’ll still have to act normal at work. While we’re on duty we can’t seem any…different.” He sounded worried.

Tim leant forward and kissed him, revelling in the fact that he could, “I know, Jethro. I understand.”

And the smile Jethro gave him for that? Was worth keeping any secret.


End file.
